"We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as "wild". To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery."

Luther Standing Bear - Rosebud Sioux

Guardian of the Water Medicine

Guardian of the Water Medicine
Dale Auger

Dale Auger

Dale Auger: On Art, Blood and Kindred Spirits
by Terri Mason

Defining Dale Auger in one sentence is akin to releasing the colours of a diamond in one cut. It can’t be done. It’s the many facets that release a diamond’s true brilliance, as it is the many facets of Auger’s life, education, ancestry, experiences and beliefs that have shaped and polished his work into the internationally acclaimed and collected artist that he is today.

Born a Sakaw Cree from the Bigstone Cree Nation in northern Alberta, Auger’s education began as a young boy when his mother would take him to be with the elders. “I used to say to myself, ‘Why is she leaving me with these old people?’ – but today I see the reason; I was being taught in the old way.”

Auger’s respect for traditional teachings led him on a journey to study art, opening the door to a doctorate in education. He is a talented playwright, speaker and visual artist whose vividly coloured acrylics have captured the attention of collectors that reads like an international ‘Who’s Who’ spanning English to Hollywood royalty. The essence of his work is communication, and now Dr. Auger has come full circle, interpreting the life of his culture – from the everyday to the sacred - through the cross-cultural medium of art.

Read the rest here:

http://www.daleauger.com/printversionbio.cfm

Friday, June 13, 2008

Apology part of healing process

Caroline Zentner

Treaty 7 Grand Chief Charles Weaselhead described the government’s apology as a watershed in the history of the residential schools.

“This apology is an important part of this whole process leading to healing and reconciliation. The organization that did the damage has come forward with an apology,” he said in a telephone interview from the Tsuu T’ina First Nation. “It definitely puts a mark of accountability on everybody’s shoulder. Aboriginal people will no longer bear the full burden of what happened in Indian residential schools.”

Weaselhead, Chief of the Blood Nation, is a survivor of the residential schools who was only six years old when he was taken from his family.

As he listened to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apology, he did so as both a leader and an individual. The schools and the repeated abuses created “a great divide between First Nations people and who we were” and the government’s policy was nothing more than the “execution of our uniqueness as a people.”

The results are evident in the addictions, crime, suicide, poverty and dysfunctional communities First Nations people experience.

“These problems are not because we are aboriginal but the way history has forced us into a situation,” Weaselhead said. “I know, as a leader, we cannot continue on this path of destruction.”

Want to know more? Click here: http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/article_11068.php
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